


That One Last Tender Place

by leinthalexandra



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2012, Endverse, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Rule 63, always-a-girl!Dean, always-in-a-female-vessel!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:50:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leinthalexandra/pseuds/leinthalexandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Croatoan verse, 2012. The Croats are getting smarter, there's trouble brewing up in Detroit, and Cas is getting more human and less angel every day. Deanna is trying to find the few bright spots in her life as it stands, but with Michael's sudden appearance, saying "yes" is sounding more and more like the better option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That One Last Tender Place

“Read ‘em and weep, bitches,” Deanna said, throwing her hand of cards down with a triumphant smirk on her face.

“A straight?” Chuck said, and Risa gave a huff of laughter at his despairing look. He dropped his cards and leaned his head back against the wall. “Damn. What good is it being a prophet if I can’t even win at poker?”

Becky gave him a look, eyebrow raised. “You don’t even get visions anymore. You’re just a sore loser.”

“Another hand?” Jeremy, their regular poker dealer, asked, collecting their cards and shuffling.

Deanna shrugged. “Sure, I could go a few more rounds.” Cas scooted backwards, across the wooden floor of the cabin and into the vee of Deanna’s spread legs, her back to Deanna’s front, and handed her the tiny bottle of sparkly green polish. Deanna laughed a little. “Okay, yeah, fine, I’ll paint your nails,” she said, “but you’re going to have to play this hand for me.”

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Chuck started to protest. Deanna reached around Cas’ waist, Cas pulling her feet in closer so that Deanna could get to them easily. Deanna dabbed a bit of the nail polish onto Cas’ right big toe while Jeremy dealt their hands. Cas waited until all the cards had been dealt before picking up her hand; Deanna was usually the opposite when she played, grabbing each card as it came to her.

Becky shoved at Chuck with her shoulder, glaring before she turned a huge grin on Cas and Deanna. Deanna managed to hold down her momentary urge to pull away from Cas now that Becky had turned her attention to them. It was strange for the two of them to indulge in a public display of affection, but it was stranger still that she did, in fact, enjoy it. _Lighten up, Winchester_ , Risa had told her not too long ago, and fuck it, Deanna really ought to listen.

As Cas studied the cards carefully, her poker face perfect, Deanna looked at the hand Cas had drawn: ace of hearts, king of diamonds, queen of clubs, and the five and seven of spades.

“Get rid of those two,” Deanna murmured, pointing at the five and seven.

“I do know how to play poker,” Cas retorted, but she discarded the ones Deanna had indicated anyway, drawing an ace and four of diamonds. Deanna resumed her work on Cas’ toenails, clipped to the quick thanks to some of the supplies they'd traded with Jo and Anna’s camp last month, which had included small luxuries like nail clippers.

“All right, I fold,” Jeremy said. “Anyone else?” Becky set her cards down, as did Chuck. “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got.”

“I have a pair of kings,” Cas said, laying them out in front of her. “Risa?”

Risa’s face was impassive—and then she showed her hand, a grin breaking out. “Three of a kind.”

—

Several hands and a pedicure later, Risa and Cas were tied for the overall winner, but it was late enough by now that they all decided to leave it at that for now. They were all tired, and they had an early morning tomorrow anyway.

“I’ll do clean up,” Deanna offered as they began to get up from the table. Becky was leaning on Risa and Chuck, barely able to stand on her feet. Despite being here for so long, she still hadn't adjusted to the reduction in their sleeping schedules, but apparently some things were hard to get used to, no matter how long it had been.

Deanna caught Cas’ gaze, grinning a little so Cas would know to wait up for her. Jeremy and the others said their goodnights and retreated to their own cabins while Cas lingered for a moment before she, too, left Deanna alone.

The broom was in the corner by the cabinet where they stored what remained of Bobby's liquor. The door was half-opened, left like that when Chuck had come back bearing gifts—which had been two bottles of whiskey in each hand—and they had drank every last drop. But now Deanna could see one hidden in the back, a dusty old bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. She wondered if Bobby had been saving it for Rufus, and nostalgia clenched at her heart, followed sharp by a wave of anger. Her parents, Pamela, Ellen, Bobby—they hadn’t fucking deserved it. _No one_ fucking deserved it, but at least with them she could have done _something_.

She took the bottle out from the cabinet, popped open the cork, and poured herself a glass before refilling her empty flask. Once the bottle was back where it belonged, and she’d stolen a quick sip—the shit had a kick like nobody’s business, _damn_ —she picked up the broom and started sweeping, losing herself in the monotony of the motions.

“Hello, Deanna.”

The voice was achingly familiar, as was the—the _visage_ he’d chosen. It still felt like a kick to the stomach, though, seeing that easy, innocent smile. When she’d known him, John Winchester had never looked like that. Even when they weren't out on a hunt he'd always seemed haunted by ghosts. She remembered when Cas had sent her back in time, though; remembered how John had grinned as if he didn’t have a care in the world. The way Michael wore it looked wrong, like an Ingres painting trying to masquerade as a Picasso. Was he trying to appeal to the side of her that was still Daddy’s little soldier? Fuck that.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“You already know,” Michael said, sitting down on the table nearby. He smiled again, sending a shudder through her.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Michael poured himself a glass of the whisky. “You and I both know that's not quite true. I've been waiting a long time for this conversation; I think it’s one we should have had a long time ago.”

“What do you want from me?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. Her hand trembled as she squeezed the broom tightly in her grip.

“I want you to understand,” he said, taking a drink. He looked at the glass with an amused expression.

“Understand what? That you and all the other angels are dicks? Zachariah made me choke on my own lungs to get me to say yes to you. Not a pleasant experience.”

“Really, though, Deanna,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “what good can possibly come from this...constant refusal to acknowledge that this is how it was always supposed to be? Free will...it's just an illusion. You have a difficult time enough as it is trusting your own decisions, after all. It’s because you have nothing to believe in."

“Yeah, you ‘find my lack of faith disturbing,’ is that it, Vader?”

His small smile didn’t look right; it gave her an uncomfortable itch in the middle of her back, right along her spine. “Humans. You’re all so...stubborn. It amazes me, your complete refusal to do what is asked of you. To go against God’s will. I had thought that you, of all people, Deanna, would be able to see my position.”

“And why the hell should I believe you?” she asked, and took a long drink. “I’ve never been on real good terms with the man upstairs anyway.” Jury was still out on if he even existed, but she wasn’t going to tell Michael that. “Everything you’re telling me just sounds like complete bullshit. I’ve made it this far without your ‘help.’ Score for free will, right there. So I’ll say it again. Fuck. Off.”

“We could fix all of this, you know.” Michael stared at his glass with vague curiosity. “We would be unstoppable. It’s what we’re meant for, you and I. You’re only hurting humanity’s chances of survival by putting off the inevitable. Unlike my brothers, you see, I don't want to hurt you, or any other humans. You are my Father's creations, after all.”

“I think I’ll decide what the right thing is for myself, thanks. Because you know what? We’ve helped save people. Innocent lives. A bunch of them probably wouldn’t be alive if not for us—which is more than you bastards can say, considering you haven’t done a damn thing to help anyone but yourselves. And if I did say yes and you and Lucifer had your little showdown, you’d torch half the planet.”

Michael shrugged. “It’s ultimately up to you to say yes. And you _will_ say yes to me. I can already promise you that. But I won’t force you against your will like Zachariah might have.” He fixed his gaze on her now. Deanna felt trapped under his scrutiny, like a bacteria under a microscope. “I want you to make the right decision. I trust you to.”

Then he was gone, and the air rushed back into her lungs.

—

Cas was already in bed when Deanna finished up, mouth sour from Michael’s visit, stomach numb from the scotch. Deanna wasn’t surprised to see her taking a long drag on the joint she rolled up from thin paper scavenged from who knew where.

“Well, you sure took your time,” said Cas. She exhaled slowly, and Deanna coughed on the smoke. She hated the bitter-sweet smell of pot.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Deanna tugged off her boots, then walked over to the bed, nearly tripping over Cas’ shoes, the older pair with the frayed up laces that had the leather peeling back from the soles. “It’s a fucking mess in here, you know that, right?”

Cas just rolled her eyes and pulled the blankets back for her. “I don’t see you doing anything about it either,” she said without heat. Her short dark hair flopped over to one side as she tilted her head up to look at Deanna.

Deanna grunted and collapsed onto the mattress. “I don’t wanna move for at least twenty-four hours,” she said, her words slurring together. “I’m tired. I think I could sleep for days.” But she couldn’t because Jo and Anna had missed their weekly communications, and that probably meant that their radio was busted up again, or maybe there was no one left to send a message out. They should send someone to check up on them, but they also needed those extra bodies for a supply run. There still wasn't enough medication for the doctor to treat the handful of new arrivals that had shown up last week, bringing a bad cough with them. And they were running out of food and clean drinking water, running out of what remaining scraps of civilization they had left.

She jerked when Cas tapped her lightly on the cheek. “Would that make you Sleeping Beauty then?”

“What?” Deanna said, scrunching up her face and her eyes, looking up at Cas in spite of the bright light filtering in through the windows.

Cas just tilts her head. “You seem a little-”

“What, tense?”

“Distant,” Cas said, “but if you prefer tense.”

Deanna sat up, forced herself to take a slow, deep breath to force her nerves to calm, to untangle themselves. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Want something to take the edge off?”

Deanna held her breath, head still buzzing and her fingers numb from the alcohol earlier. From Bobby’s alcohol, Rufus’s alcohol. “Sure, what the hell.” She held out her hand to Cas, hoping that Cas would know what she needed, because fuck if Deanna knew herself.

“Pick your poison,” Cas said, after reaching over to the small pill bottle on the end table nearby, and she held the bottle out in one hand with her joint in the other.

Deanna wondered what was in the bottle, almost asked but bit the words down. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Instead, she took the joint from Cas’s fingers, put her lips where Cas’s lips had been, over the light imprint of gloss—Cas had found somewhere a while back. She’d complained how sticky and tacky it was from age, but that hadn’t stopped her from smearing it all over her lips.

The smoke burned when Deanna dragged it down, but she didn’t cough this time, didn’t even blink. Didn’t take her gaze away from Cas’s face as she began to roll a new joint for herself.

“I’m tired,” she said again. “All this shit we've got to take care of, with the new folks, and the supply run tomorrow, and not hearing from Anna and Jo in like, a fucking week, and then-”

“Nope, none of that,” Cas said, her hand firm on Deanna’s chin as she pulled her close for a quick, fierce kiss. “You’ve been dwelling on all of that for much too long today. Rule number four—don’t bring your work to bed.”

A small grin crossed Deanna’s lips. “Fine, you win.”

“Oh, so our fearless leader has conceded victory to me? And what is it exactly that I’ve won?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“Of course, but it certainly takes the fun out of it.” Cas plucked the joint from Deanna’s fingers, taking another quick drag before she carefully snuffed the embers out against the floor. She set the rest of the half-smoked joint aside for a later time.

After all, who knew when they’d find another batch of pot, and Chuck had already told Cas no when she had suggest they grow their own. They needed that ground for growing vegetables, he’d said, and Deanna had agreed.

She’d had to sleep in Risa’s cabin for a week after that.

Cas’ hand skimmed down Deanna’s side to rest low against her thigh holster, fingers playing under the straps as she leaned down to bite gently at Deanna’s lower lip. Deanna rolled onto her back, and Cas swung her leg over Deanna’s hips to straddle her waist.

Deanna snaked her hand through Cas’ hair, tugging her in close and running her hands down Cas’ back and moving them under Cas’ shirt to catch the hem and drag it up. Cas bent her head to help Deanna pull it off the rest of the way, and then sat back near Deanna’s thighs so they could get rid of Deanna’s shirt as well.

With fumbling fingers, they managed to get each other’s jeans down, but Deanna was too impatient when she saw that Cas wasn’t even wearing panties, and she started fucking up into Cas with her fingers, their pants still slung low along their hips. Cas gave a low, breathless laugh; she liked it hard, liked it fast.

“C’mon,” Cas groaned, arching her hips up so Deanna could reach up into her at a better angle and crook her fingers and make her squirm in just that right way against Deanna; her breath hitching in her throat, thighs shivering all around her as Deanna rubbed circles against Cas’ clit, her head tilted back, exposing that delicious red flush which was already spreading down her neck and across her breasts.

“Harder,” Cas gasped out, because she knew Deanna could, knew that she could pinch and pull at her clit and and her lips until there was nothing but the sweet thrum of white fire all along her nerves, and the two of them in this single moment, together.

They were done, quick, soon, and brutal, leaving them both panting, and Deanna could barely talk with her throat so dry from the sounds Cas had coaxed out of her. Loved the sounds that she had managed to pull from Cas’ own mouth, too.

But she guessed angels of the Lord, even slowly falling ones, weren’t as affected by a good fuck as regular humans were because suddenly Cas murmured, “I can’t hear them very much anymore, you know.”

Deanna’s stomach tightened again, not like before when threads of pleasure spun her tight and wanting, so she said just to buy some time, “Who?”

“The angels.”

Deanna wondered if she should ask for that joint, if that would distract Cas enough so that she wouldn’t ever mention it again. She was afraid of what she might end up saying if they did.

“They’ve gone quiet,” Cas said, finally looking over at her, dark hair caught in the sweat on her cheeks, shielding her pretty blue eyes. “Even though I’ve been losing my powers over the past few years, I’ve always been able to hear them in the back of my head, like this—quiet whisper or something. Now it’s just a few words here and there. Fewer every day.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Deanna forced herself to say. “It’s not like you guys got along anyway right? Besides your brother’s such a dick, worse than you ever were, you know. ‘Cause hey, at least you never wanted Michael to wear me to Prom Night at Apocalypse High.” She punched Cas softly on the arm, but even though Cas was right right there next to her physically, close enough Deanna could feel the huff of her breath along her arm, it was like she wasn’t really _there_ , like her gaze was looking past Deanna— _through_ Deanna—to stare at someone else.

“A bag of dicks,” Cas said. “That’s what Gabriel said.” She rolled over away from Deanna, and Deanna followed her, tried to wrap an arm across her waist, but Cas jerked at the touch. “They’re still my brothers.” Then she pretended to snore, and there was nothing Deanna could really do with that.

And if a little while later, Deanna reached over and finished the last of the Walker Blue to get herself to sleep, well. Not like it was much different than most nights.

—

Deanna woke up feeling like she had been run over by a truck. The hangover had left her spinning and spinning without a tether to hold her down to earth.

“You look like you had a party without me last night,” Cas said, her voice low and soft.

“Fuck off,” Deanna mumbled into the pillow. Cas laughed as she crawled into bed and under the blankets next to her.

“Sorry. Not nearly as good or as interesting without you.” Cas’ tone was teasing but fond. She ran her fingers through Deanna’s long, dark hair. It was nice and comfortable. Deanna didn’t want to get up, even felt herself drifting back to sleep a little. Cas certainly seemed wide awake, though.

Deanna wanted to tell her that she could have joined in—they could have made it a thing, some kind of daily ritual where they drank their daddy issues away—if Cas hadn’t been such a baby by pretending to fall asleep. But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to start a fight. Her head and her heart were too heavy for it today. Instead, she said, “Sleep well? Heard you snoring. Thought you were gonna keep me up all night, too.”

“Angels don’t sleep,” Cas reminded her.

Deanna’s throat hurt, so she just nodded, short and bitter. Wondered why Cas was so unconcerned with the lie that she wasn’t even bothering to cover it up, to play along. Remembered that time she told Cas that when humans wanted something—really, really wanted something—they lied. She wondered what Cas would think of that now.

Cas shoved at her—playfully, Deanna thought. But maybe it wasn’t.

“But really, Cas, you’re practically human now,” she said. “You’ve got to at least try to sleep.” Cas only gave a little “hmmm” of acknowledgement. “Well, like I said. I wasn’t tired. I’ll be okay.”

They lay in bed for a little while, the cool crisp morning air coming in through the half-opened windows. Deanna could smell the wood smoke from the breakfast crew starting their cooking for the day.

“Would it make me a terrible leader if we just let Risa run the mission today and we stayed home and had sex all morning?” she mumbled into Cas’ neck. Cas’ laugh was low and quiet, and it made Deanna want to move in closer and chase after the sound, because it lacked the usual bitterness Deanna heard far too often from her.

“It would make you incredibly irresponsible, but I have no problem with that.” Cas’ hand idly stroked along Deanna’s hip. “Though I think I can hear-”

As if on cue, there was Risa shouting as she banged her fist on the wood of the door. “Come on, Winchester, we’ve got a run to make!”

Deanna groaned. “Does she have to be so _loud_?”

“It’s the little things in life that make us all less miserable,” Cas said, with far too much cheer in her tone, “and hers is treating you like a brat sister, apparently. Come on.” She tugged on the back of Deanna’s shirt. “We’d better get moving. Otherwise I’ll probably have to see to it that we _do_ spend all day in this bed.”

“Again, remind me why that’s a bad thing?” Deanna asked, though she did—slowly—drag herself from the bed, pulling up her pants as she did so, making sure her gun holster was buckled tight along her thigh before hunting down where she’d kicked off her boots last night.

“How would you ever protect your reputation then, oh, fearless leader?” Cas gave her a sly grin. “People would talk. Not saving people or hunting things, not the family business anymore, oh, no. Can’t be having that, now, can we?”

Deanna rolled her eyes and pulled on her jeans before she tossed Cas’ pants at her.

—

As they approached the trucks, Deanna groaned when she saw Chuck standing nearby with his usual clipboard and worried expression.

“Look, Chuck-” she started, wanting to make this conversation short and to the point, but apparently Chuck was having none of it.

“I’m not asking for a miracle, I promise,” Chuck said, “but here’s a list that I broke down by priority. The ‘A’ stuff list are things we can’t go without.” He handed over the top sheet of paper from his clipboard. Deanna noticed that he had toilet paper at the very top of the list. Personally, she figured that food was more important, but whatever. Different priorities. “‘B’ stuff is pretty important, but isn’t slipping into the dire need zone just yet. And the ‘C’ stuff is mostly personal requests, things that would be nice but probably aren’t too feasible, you know—someone was wanting to see if we could find some bubblegum, or like, more playing cards or paperback novels. That kind of stuff.”

“Thanks,” she said, giving him a half-grin and a hard slap on the shoulder. She pretended not to see him wince on impact. “I like this better than what you did before.”

“What, hand us a list of shit and say ‘here, grab this, that’d be great, don’t forget food and toilet paper’?” Cas interjected, coming up behind them like the creeper she still managed to be, even without her angel mojo. Chuck flinched visibly; Deanna managed to check her own tiny jump in time. Years of dealing with Cas and her disturbing ability to show up at the most inopportune times had given her lots of practice.

“Yeah, uh...something like that.” Chuck shook his head. “Anyway, the trucks are all ready, and it’s only like, a three hour trip total, so what time should we...?”

Deanna checked her watch. “It’s nine right now, so let’s say...we should get there by eleven at the latest, and maybe about, what- four, five hours total for scout and recon and loading trucks? Plus return trip...I’d say seven, give or take half an hour.”

“So do you want two hours for a safe zone?” Chuck asked.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. You know the drill—if we’re not back, put it on lockdown, quarantine procedures, all that jazz.”

Chuck put a hand to his forehead. “Got it. Um, two- two hours...fuck.”

“What’s up with you today?” Deanna asked as Cas climbed into the truck.

He grimaced. “No idea. I’m getting those headaches again—like, I-am-the-prophet-Chuck kind of headaches. Haven’t had one of those in a long time.”

“Wait, so you’re having visions again? Have you seen anything specific?”

“No, nothing like that. Not yet, anyway,” Chuck said. “But, well, I hate to be cliché about it, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Deanna pursed her lips “Well, all right then, Obi-Wan, but you tell me if you start getting any more ‘bad feelings’.” She did the air quotes at him. “God forbid we walk into a trap or anything.”

Chuck gave her a weird look, a nervous laugh that came out a little bit breathless. “Um, yeah, sure, you got it. But uh, you know, I only get these headaches when it comes to you, or- or, um...”

The sudden, sharp look she gave him caused his stammered words to drift into silence. “If you see anything, vision-wise, you let me know,” she said. “As soon as you know anything, okay?”

“You got it.” He paused. “So um...be safe.” Chuck gave her a last nervous look before he walked back off toward the center of camp. Deanna hauled herself up and into the front seat of the lead truck where Cas was already waiting in the passenger seat.

“What was that about?” Cas wanted to know as Deanna turned the keys in the ignition.

“Nothing."

—

“Okay, people, listen up. Split off in pairs, check your lists, and find as many items as you can, grab as much as you can carry.” There were ten people who had volunteered for this trip, so five groups of two, she counted mentally. “Each list has a mix of high, medium, and low priority stuff, so get the things at the top first.”

Risa checked the piece of paper and added, “Those plastic containers might be a bit clunky, but if you leave them out by the doors we could probably use them to carry the toilet paper and the smaller stuff so we can consolidate.”

Deanna nodded. “Alright, people, let’s move.”

Cas turned to her as the others dispersed. “I’m guessing you put yourself in charge of the pharmacy, hmm?”

“Obviously.”

“What, you think I’m gonna-”

“You’re in charge of the heavy shit,” Deanna interrupted. “Anything on here that’s bulky or too hard for a one-person job, that’s all you. Put what’s left of your super-strength to good use and all that.”

“You got it, fearless leader.” Cas, the sneaky bastard, managed to smack Deanna on the ass before she wandered off, moving too quickly for retaliation.

—

An hour or so later, Deanna hopped out from behind the pharmacy counter, her bag full to bursting with prescriptions and over the counter meds alike. She wasn’t expecting to almost run into Cas standing alone in the middle of the makeup aisle. She ran her fingers along the crooked, dusty shelves, and Deanna could see that her nail polish was already starting to chip.

“What are you doing here, Cas?”

“Don’t worry,” Cas said, not bothering to look at her, “I found everything else on my list. It’s over there.” She pointed to a small pile of soaps and detergents.

Deanna watched as Cas picked up a tube of bright pink lipstick and studied it carefully. Not that Deanna actually had ever bothered with the crap, but when she had...she looked around, spotting the one color she recognized from when she and Sam had needed an extra girly disguise.

“You know,” Cas said absently, “before the world went to hell—literally—I was quite interested in how humans had become so destructive towards themselves and this whole planet. The cosmetics industry alone...” She tapped the tube against her other hand. “I mean, how important is lipstick to you, Deanna?”

Deanna furrowed her brow. “Not all that damn important.” She dropped the tube she’d been holding like she’d been burned. “What’s it to you?” She swallowed hard, how she’d hide out in the bathroom, some dirty little secret tube of lipstick in hand. How sometimes, as she dabbed at the excess, she’d imagine Cas discovering her, Cas seeing the hot flush down her neck; thought of how Cas would say she looked ridiculous, that she got the color all wrong, because Deanna knew fuck-all about that. How Cas would say, _let me have some of that_ , and instead of taking the tube from her hand she would bring their mouths together for a kiss.

Cas probably didn’t know about this—Cas couldn’t read minds, not anymore—and only knew that her long hair was her one indulgence, because if Samson could do it then so could Deanna. She never wore dresses or skirts or heels or any of that sparkly glittery crap, either, except for that one time when Rhonda the head cheerleader had dared her to, and only then so she could get a good lay.

“Just curious. What about this?”

Deanna flinched when Cas held up a vial of sparkly purple nail polish, a glittery blue one in her other hand. “You used the last of mine yesterday.”

“Yeah, because you asked me to.”

“You could have had some if you asked nicely,” Cas told her. “Do you want something different? Green to match your eyes?” She sidled in closer, breath hot against Deanna’s ear. “I read somewhere that when you die, you come back different, like with greener eyes or as some far off star shining right out of them.” She pulled back, her lips parted but it wasn’t a smile. “I assure you, I took no liberties with the shade of your eyes when I remade you-” and her hand brushed against the scarred print on Deanna’s shoulder.

Deanna took a step back, Cas suddenly too tall beside her even though her vessel—her body now, Deanna guessed—had always been a little shorter. The proximity of Cas’ body to her own made it hard to focus, to breathe. Cas had become almost as big of a weak spot to her as Sam had been.

Then, Cas held up the polish once more. “This might make the illusion of greener eyes, though. Depending on the light. What do you think?”

“I think you can bring whatever girly shit you want, but don’t expect me to paint your toes again. You can get Becky to do it.”

 _You don't get pretty, glittery shit on your hands_ , Deanna thought as Cas found a cheap plastic makeup bag covered with a fine layer of dust, which she brushed off and proceeded to fill with a dull rainbow of eye shadows, lipsticks, and mascaras. _You just get dried blood under your nails_.

—

"We need to talk" were the first words out of Chuck's mouth when they returned to camp. Both Deanna and Cas followed him, Risa taking over with the unloading, as he led them into the “HQ cabin,” as Becky had named it.

"I had a vision while you guys were gone," he said. "It's Sam. She's in Detroit. I think." "You think?" Deanna echoed. Cas sent a sharp look in her direction.

"It's not like there was a big sign posted up!" Chuck said defensively. "That's just the vibe I got from it, okay? You told me you wanted me to let you know if I saw anything, and I did."

Deanna took a few long, shuddering breaths. Cas sat down and lit her cigarette, blowing smoke rings in her face.

She looked away from Cas. “I’m going up there. If I can-”

Cas scoffed, flicking ash from her cigarette towards Deanna. “What the hell are you thinking? Did the Croats manage to knock loose what sense you still had left?”

Of course Cas would protest. Would say they had to consider tactics or right timing or verify the information because if the angels really were gone, then they weren’t even speaking to Cas, one of the host, so why the hell would a prophet—former prophet, now just regular Chuck Shurley—who was just another goddamn human, know what was going on? Deanna could already hear him saying that it could be a _trap_ , that they had to make _sure_ , that they had to be _smart_ about this. She knew the arguments before he even said them, though; one cannot simply walk into Mordor, after all. “Jo and Anna’s camp is on the other side of the Kansas City quarantine—it’s the way to Detroit. We can kill two birds with one stone, and I know they’d both come. They’d help us out. We’re family.”

Cas narrowed her eyes. “And what are you going to promise to get any of them to agree to waltzing right into a hot zone like Detroit?”

Deanna looked up from the maps she had been refolding, holding Cas’s eyes unblinking and stone cold. “I won’t need to promise them anything, Cas, because unlike your pals up in Heaven, we don’t leave our people behind.”

“Chuck, you’re going to want to leave now,” Cas said. Chuck bolted out as soon as the words had left her mouth, leaving the makeshift door of the cabin swinging in his wake.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do, Cas? Just leave my sister out there? If I have a chance to get her back, get her on our side, I’m gonna take it.”

“Why the hell are you even considering this?” Cas asked.

Deanna glared. “This could be important. Chuck hasn’t had a vision in years, and for one to happen now-”

“So what, you’re just gonna waltz on up to Croatoan ground zero and expect to find Sam?” Cas snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like a _great_ idea. If you’re feeling that suicidal why not call up Michael and see if he wants to take a ride?”

“How the hell could you even say something like that?” she asked. “This isn’t about me. This is about Sam. This is about stopping that stupid bitch from possibly saying yes to Lucifer! You know how she is, Cas—she’s probably got some fool idea in her head about doing something for the greater good, paving her own way to hell with her ‘good intentions.’” She dumped plastic bottles of holy oil and holy water into the duffle. The wooden rosaries tapped against the insides of the water bottles as they settled.

“I wouldn’t seriously suggest it because I know you wouldn’t seriously consider it.”

“Hey,” Deanna said, “I’m not the one who was saying all the angels had gone. Makes it kind of hard to say yes when there’s no one around to say yes to. But geez, thanks for having so much faith in me, Cas.” She rolled her eyes. “You know, at least I’m here now instead of off in my own little world most of the time. At least I’m going to do something instead of sitting around with my thumb up my ass, waiting for something good to happen. You’re just high as a fucking kite.”

“At least I can keep my head on straight and trust when people are telling me I’ve gone over the line.”

“Right, _trust_ ,” Deanna said with a derisive snort. She crossed her arms in front of her. “Because I get so much of that from you these days.”

Cas got to her feet. “Don’t you even start.” Her voice was low. She walked forward, breaking the barrier of personal space, just like always, and brought her hand up to land a solid blow against Deanna’s jaw. Deanna reeled back, caught off-guard.

“What the fuck was that?” she demanded, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and glaring at Cas. She looked down and saw blood smeared there along the edge of her thumb; when she ran her tongue along the rows of teeth, she could taste it there, too. Good.

“You’re an asshole,” Cas said.

Deanna snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.” She shoved the table out of the way before she pulled back and landed a solid punch against Cas’s temple. Cas stumbled back, heel of her palm cradling the pain. “You got enough humanity in there so that it hurts like a bitch?” Deanna asked. “Or are you gonna smoke those last two joints and pretend you aren’t getting closer to finally being human? Gonna fly off, or have you finally you lost your pretty little wings?”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Cas said, panting slightly. Her blue eyes “I do have faith in you, Deanna. But I am not going to stand here and let you go off the rails like this.” She gave Deanna a look. “Dumbass.”

“Yeah, well-”

“-but fine. We’ll go.”

—

Deanna missed the days where she could put in a mix tape, and _Back in Black_ would play full throttle from the Impala’s speakers, amped up and crystal clear thanks to the work she’d put into them over the years. Croats’ brains might have been rotted to the core but their ears worked just fine.

Cas, of course, had lit up a joint the second she’d swung herself into the seat. Had rolled the window down and stuck her leg out in the wind, eyes half-closed and her lips half-parted like she was kissing the smoke that drifted between them. They talked a little, but it was the kind of conversation where neither party was all that invested in what the other was saying. Just talking to hear another person’s voice, really.

She laughed with relief when the jeep guttered up the last steep hill that barricaded the shallow valley where Anna and Jo had made their camp. There were people sitting on logs, whittling out arrows, pounding the small scraggly pieces of grain they had managed to grow into flour.

They were still here. They were still alive. She breathed a sigh of relief.

By the time they made their way into the main area of the camp, Anna and Jo were already waiting for them. “What the hell happened to keeping in touch, you bitches?” Deanna asked, pulling them into a big bear hug. Her hands clung to their shirts, to their shoulder blades, grounding herself in the knowledge that they were still okay. Still alive.

“Our radio broke again,” Anna said, voice muffled against Deanna’s neck. “We were gonna come see you if we hadn’t gotten it fixed by tomorrow.”

Jo pulled away, giving Deanna a friendly smack on the arm, her grin perky, just as it had been when she was a kid and Ellen was still alive. “You miss us or something?”

“Only every damn day,” Deanna said, feeling a little bit more like her old self. Shooting the shit between the four of them was easy, familiar territory. Almost like there wasn’t an apocalypse looming over their heads.

“You came to check up on us,” Anna said. “That’s so sweet.”

Cas’s laugh sounded sharp and brittle to Deanna’s ears. “That’s not the only reason.” She drags deep on the last remaining stub of her joint. “It’s not just angels that come around when they want someone to say yes.” The smile she graced Deanna with was sweet and poisonous before she exchanged a look with Anna.

Deanna knew they’d say yes. Sam was family. Always would be, and there wasn’t a damn thing that could change that and, even though they’d been on total radio silence and hadn’t heard from one another in years, that didn’t make it stop being so.

Before noon, they were already in their trucks and jeeps, a ragged black parade marching its way to Detroit.

As the caravan of trucks rolled to a stop, Anna and Jo’s Jeep pulled up beside them. Deanna took a deep breath, staring down at the steering wheel so she wouldn’t have to look at the city skyline. It had been a long drive, almost fourteen hours, and the sun had only started to rise an hour or two ago.

“You ready for this?” Cas asked quietly, sounding more like her old, more angelic self. One hand rested on her knee, her cigarette in the other, though she had apparently let it burn out a few minutes ago.

“No.”

There was a knock at the driver-side window; Jo waved at them and Deanna rolled the window down. “You two planning on getting out of the car anytime soon or do I have to drag your asses out of there?”

Anna stood not too far off, nearer where they had parked their own vehicle. Her hands flew over the guns they had stored in the back, loading them with ammunition and performing last-minute checks to ensure they were all in working order. Anna’s grace had depleted far more quickly than Cas’ had, but Deanna had the suspicion that she’d done something to make it happen that way. Even when they’d first met, Anna had seemed a lot happier as a human than an angel.

“Yeah, yeah, keep your panties on, Jo,” Deanna said, opening the door and getting out somewhat sluggishly. Despite their plan to switch off drivers and drive through the night, she still was gonna need some of that nasty insta-coffee that seemed to be in abundance even in the middle of an apocalypse. “We’re coming.”

—

Cas wanted to stay together and have them search the city as a group; Deanna argued that it would be better to split up. “We barely have a hanged man’s chance of survival with all of us together—you won’t last a minute on your own,” Cas said, lighting another cigarette and blowing blue smoke in Deanna’s face. Deanna wished she wouldn’t keep doing that.

“We don’t have time,” Deanna said. “Detroit is big-ass city and we need to find Sam.”

“And what then?” Jo said. “What are we going to do?”

Dean checked to make sure her gun was locked and loaded—for the fourth or fifth time, she wasn’t sure—and holstered it. The heavy weight of it against her thigh was comforting. “We bring her home. But first we have to get to her in time. We have to risk it.”

Cas sighed and shook her head. Dropped her cigarette to the ground, snuffing it out with her boot. “We should at least go in pairs then, if you’re going to insist on splitting up.”

“Compromise is good,” Anna said, and so it was decided, and they branched off to search for Sam.

Hours had passed with no sign of any human life. It gave Deanna the chills to think on it too much. Even if Detroit had been ground zero for the Croatoan virus, she still would have expected to see some people still managing to stick through it. Maybe they’d gotten smart—packed up and left before anything got a hold of them. _If only_.

In the distance Deanna noticed a lone figure walking among the wreckage of what seemed to be a former high-rise building. She moved in closer, careful where she walked so as not to announce her presence. Her arm still burned but she ignored it, hefting her weapon to a ready position. Behind her, Cas wasn’t too far away, and Deanna held up a hand for her to stop moving. Cas waited as Deanna walked forward alone.

As she approached, the figure turned toward her, and Deanna nearly dropped her gun. The sight made her go weak at the knees in relief. She clutched at her hair, felt tears well up in her eyes as a hysterical laugh dragged itself out of her throat. Deanna broke out into a run across the ruined street, dropping her emptied bandolier of ammunition to the ground.

“Sammy!” she shouted, not caring if the demons or Croats hear her. Sam was _okay_ , she was _alive_. Should have known better than to trust any information other than what her own two eyes and ears could tell her, she thought. As she got nearer, Sam turned around, her features breaking out in a grin as she saw Deanna, who threw her arms around Sam and hugged her as tight as she could, even with the kevlar vest getting in the way.

But she didn’t care. It was _Sam_ , and she was _okay_ , and Deanna could barely breathe from the way Sam hugged her back. Deanna’s arm was bleeding from being grazed by a stray bullet earlier and it was fucking painful every time she moved it, but she pushed it all away. Sam’s short, shaggy hair brushed against Deanna’s fingertips, and she ruffled it when they finally pulled apart. When Deanna looked at her, really _looked_ , Sam’s eyes were bright and clear, her face smudged with blood and dirt (probably a lot like Deanna’s was, truth be told), and her smile didn’t quite meet her eyes, though it faded quickly. “I can’t believe you came here,” Sam said.

Still trying to catch her breath, Deanna gave a weary laugh. “They said you…they said you didn’t make it. But I just fucking knew, you know? Helluva time we had, though, trying to get up here.” She laughed humorlessly. “At one point I swear it was like we were having to hack our way through demons and Croats with nothing but a machete and a Jeep to use as a battering ram.”

Sam’s lips twitched upwards, but only just. “Sounds like you had a pretty rough time of things.”

Deanna snorted. “You got that right.” Looking around, she noticed the streets were still empty. Even in the aftermath of the virus, Detroit still had a relatively high population level, but right now the two of them seemed to be the only people around, uninfected or otherwise. “Where the hell is everyone, Sam? We heard there was gonna be a huge showdown up here, but I could’ve-”

A small huff of laughter escaped past Sam’s lips. It was almost inaudible, but in the deathly silence all around them, Deanna could hear it all too clearly. Sam’s laughter grew louder, but still soft, easy, and it raised the hair on the back of Deanna’s neck.

“Sam?”

It only took one look. Deanna’s stomach seemed to drop past her feet, and the only thought in her head was _should have known, should have seen, should have_ -

“I’m sorry, Deanna,” Lucifer said. Said her name in Sam’s voice, looked at her with Sam’s stupid, stupid fucking eyes, couldn’t do the kicked puppy look as good as Sam could, especially when she was little, goddammit, _no_ — “but Sam’s not here right now.”

“Leave my sister alone, you son of a bitch,” Deanna said through gritted teeth, her fist clenched at her side. The air was colder, sharper than it was not two minutes before, and her head’s spinning. This had to be a dream, some sick nightmare created by her drunken brain. It made her want to throw up.

Lucifer, the bastard, had the gall to give her this sorrowful, almost soulful look. “But don’t you see? I’m an angel, and that means I have to ask permission before I can take a vessel.”

Even though she knew that, she _fucking knew it_ before, that didn’t help to soften the blow.

“Sam is the one who said yes, Deanna. Of her own free will.” Lucifer dragged the last few words out, clearly enjoying this.

“Deanna!” a voice called out from across the street. Deanna didn’t even have to tear her gaze away to know who it was. She tried to open her mouth, tried to get words out, but the words wouldn’t come. Couldn’t even cry, either, even though she wanted to scream and sob and shove Lucifer face-first into the pile of rubble at their feet. Didn’t matter if it’s her little sister’s body, either, because Sam was dead. Deanna saw what happened to Raphael’s vessel, long ago, and after the archangel had left, well. Lucifer wasn’t likely to leave anything of her sister behind.

Her feet were rooted to the spot, and Lucifer moved closer to her, that not-right smile spreading slowly across Sam’s face. Her stomach churned at the sight, bile rising in her throat.

“Now we’ve got one half of the equation here,” Lucifer said, voice smooth like an oil slick. “Time for you to step up to the plate, Deanna. Call Michael down. We’ll end this now.”

Lucifer grabbed Deanna’s jaw and neck in a grip that was far too strong for Sam’s hand; her sister was the tall and gangly one, while Deanna had been shorter, more compact, stronger where Sam was faster. Sam would never been able to pin Deanna in place like this with only a hand. Deanna’s heart pounded wildly in her chest, adrenaline pumping through her veins, and she barely managed to choke out a word-

“ _No_.”

“No?” Lucifer echoed, blinking, voice going soft. “I’m sorry, I don’t think that’s the right answer.” The hand on Deanna’s throat tightened its grip. “Try again.”

“How about fuck you?” Deanna said, coughing. There were colorful spots filling her vision now, and Lucifer’s voice ( _Sam’s_ voice, but it’s all twisted up and wrong) sounded as though it was coming from far away.

Sam’s face— _Lucifer’s_ face twisted into a pitying smirk. “You humans. So stubborn.” Next thing Deanna knew, she’d been tossed to the ground, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth. She pushed herself up, coughing, trying to force oxygen through her crushed throat as Lucifer loomed nearer until flames erupted all around, and Lucifer’s head flew back, mouth twisted into an open scream, as something sent them far, far away.

Through the smoke, Cas ran to Deanna, her boots crunching over the shattered remains of a glass bottle, still flickering with bright flames. Deanna could only presume Cas had filled it with holy oil before flinging it at Lucifer’s back.

“This is why we don’t fucking split up,” Cas said, hauling Deanna up by her shoulders. “We don’t have much time. I already radioed Anna and Jo to high tail it back to the trucks.”

“That was a stupid move, Cas,” Deanna said dazedly. Before she could say anything more, she heard the familiar tell-tale flutter of wings, and they both hit the ground hard, Cas rolling before she slammed her palms to the ground, curling up into a ball. Deanna was on her feet in an instant. The muscles in Cas’ back twitched and she moaned in pain.

“Cas,” Deanna said, rushing over, “Cas, oh god, I’m so sorry, but you gotta get up, okay?” Cas pulled into herself even tighter. Panic rose inside and Deanna tugged on Cas’ arm, “Baby, come on, we have to get out of here, _please_ , come on...” She dragged Cas to her feet, trying not to put her hands on Cas’ back. Cas didn’t protest the manhandling, which wasn’t like her. There it was, that last spin of grace and celestial intent, like a flame flickering out, and there it went. Deanna shook her head. No time to think about it now.

They started running—they had no choice, they had to find the others, they had to get the hell out of Dodge. The image of Sam—no, _Lucifer_ —was burned into her brain now, and no matter what she did she knew she couldn’t outrun it. _Sam said yes, Sam said yes, Sam said yes..._

A group of people emerged from behind a ruined building not too far up ahead. Deanna slowed her pace at once, not recognizing a single face among them. But when she turned around, she saw even more strangers behind them, cutting her and Cas off from going back they way they’d come.

“Well, look who I found,” a voice drawled, smugness dripping from every word. _Fuck_. “The big sister Winchester. Rumors about your death were greatly exaggerated, it would seem.” The man’s eyes turned black as he grinned at her.

“Yeah, I’m like a cockroach,” she shot back, trying to focus on the surrounding Croats and demons. It figured, it just fucking _figured_ that they’d get away from Lucifer just to run into the grunts. “Hard to kill and annoying as hell.” Raising her shotgun, she slammed the butt of the gun against the demon’s head, hard enough to probably cause a concussion in a human being, but the demon just shook it off like it was nothing.

“Oh, that you are,” the demon growled, lurching forward to pin Deanna against the wall by her throat. She choked and spluttered, hands grabbing to pull his own hand away so she could breathe, feet flailing and kicking as he lifted her off the ground like she weighed nothing. Around them, several Croats moved in closer, like vultures sensing the death of a future meal, but the demon hissed something in a guttural, inhuman tone, and they backed away. _Of course it's them_ , she realized, _it’s the demons controlling the damn Croats_.

“Don’t worry. We’re going to take care of that problem right now.” He squeezed harder, threatening to crush her windpipe.

Behind him came a number of shrieks and shotgun blasts. He turned to look but didn’t let go of Deanna. She started to see spots and stars in all kinds of colors. She scrabbled at the demon’s wrist, digging her nails into the skin, but maybe demons didn’t feel pain like humans did because he didn’t even fucking shudder. Her breath hitched in her throat, her legs thrashing, trying to hit him in the gut, trying to kick forward for air, air, motherfucking god she needed air. She tried to cry for it, but it came out like sounding like, “Sam, Sam-” because if Sam could hear her just one more time, maybe she could fight it, take it all back, she could-

-through her hazy vision she saw Cas, who had picked up Deanna’s shotgun and was now zeroing in on the demon. Deanna was dropped unceremoniously to the ground and she crawled to her knees, tried to force her legs to move, to stand up and _move, dammit,_ but they were too starved for oxygen. The ground came in and out of focus before her eyes as she got to her feet unsteadily, and the broken edges of debris and glass cut the skin of her hands. Why the ever-loving fuck did Cas try to use her mojo, try to slam her palm against the demon’s head and burn it out when she could have bled that son of a bitch with the goddamn knife?

 _Get up,_ she told herself, watching in horror as the demon flung Cas against a nearby building so hard the wall collapsed on top of her, and Cas screamed; _please fucking get up._ But they had her pinned down beneath stone and rubble, and the demon laughed, shouting at the Croats to dig her out, go ahead and bleed in her mouth, to make her one of them-

-and that was when a shotgun blast sounded out nearby, and there was motherfucking Jo Harvelle and Anna Milton, come to save their sorry asses and blow the goddamn Croats to bloody pieces. If there really were gods who walk the earth, she’d bet her money on them. She tugged Ruby’s knife from her boot and tossed it towards Jo, who caught it easily and plunged it into the heart of the demon standing over Cas, even as Anna made short work of the remaining Croats, headshot after headshot like she was aiming for a new high score.

Deanna stumbled forward, one hand massaging her battered throat, trying to get it to loosen up so that she could croak out, “Cas! Cas-”

The three of them together managed to pull the stones away Cas’s body, and Deanna ignored the hot sting of moisture in her eyes as she ripped away the bottom of her shirt, pressing the material against the gash in Cas’s forehead that was bleeding down her face, into her eye, down the tower of her neck.

“Come on, Cas, you gotta wake up,” she muttered, “you gotta come back to me, okay? This ain’t over yet—we’ve ganked these bitches before. Now get your feathery ass up, because I’m gonna need you if we’re going to do it again.”

And then finally, _finally_ Cas stirred, coughing and spitting up what looked like to be a chunk of tooth, or a gob of blood and spit, Deanna couldn’t tell. “I’m okay,” she gasped. “I’m fine, now would you _shut up_ -”

Deanna didn’t care, she just clutched Cas to her chest. Cas didn’t move at first, arms loose and limp at her sides until she reached around her, tugging on Deanna’s shirt, saying, “Deanna—I can’t—it’s my foot-”

“I know,” Deanna said even though she didn’t know, but the angle of her ankle looked all fucked up and _wrong,_ “it’s gonna be okay, Cas, I promise, it’ll be okay-”

But she didn’t know, and she couldn’t really promise, because how they hell could they ever have a hope to set it right when they didn’t even have a real fucking doctor with them?

—

The back of the chair dug into the flesh of Deanna’s arms, her fists clenched around it as she watched Risa tend to Cas’ foot. Watched how Risa washed it with gentle hands, calloused as they were from taking guns apart and putting them together, shoving bullets into clips, and just fucking surviving.

When they’d returned to camp the first thing they’d done was get Cas out, bringing her to their cabin and propping her up with pillows and she was pale, the blood drained from her face not unlike a corpse. A thin sheen of sweat covered every inch of her skin that Deanna could see. Cas grimaced when Risa pulled off her foot, a hiss of pain escaping, and she bit down hard on her lower lip.

Deanna gripped the back of the chair tighter, the wood digging into her already-injured hands. Don’t say anything, don’t get up, don’t make it worse because she knew that Cas would just see whatever Deanna had to offer her as pity.

“Fuck,” Cas said, voice needle thin. “Don’t we have some fucking pain pills?”

“We have to save it,” Risa said and Deanna was stupidly grateful that she had stepped up to that particular plate.

“For what, for emergencies?” Cas let out a broken laugh, the pain seeping into her voice. “The fuck is this then?”

Anna knelt beside Cas, hand resting on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. I know it’s hard at first. Falling. All those feelings hooking their claws deep inside you, tying you down like an anchor.”

“I don’t want them,” Cas said. “I’m an angel, I can stop whenever I want, but-” and she grit her teeth, biting down as Risa shifted the foot so that it lined up correctly, and even Deanna heard the bones grate into place. But Cas couldn’t quite keep her voice contained, so much like how she’d been not long after Deanna’d dragged herself out of her coffin; only difference was now she wasn’t so loud as to be breaking glass.

Anna gripped Cas’s hand in both of hers, squeezing tightly like she thought Cas was still an angel, like she wasn’t holding on so hard her hands turned white, and Deanna absently wondered if she was gonna bruise Cas. “All the feelings are good, even the bad ones.”

“I question your definition of good,” Cas spat out, her cheeks trembling, breath coming too quickly. She started hyperventilating and Deanna felt her whole entire body twitch, like she needed to pull Cas in and breathe her deep so she wouldn’t make that sound anymore.

“You need to breathe, Cas,” Anna said. “Breathe with me. Breathe in, breathe out.”

Cas feebly tried to push her away. “Fuck breathing. I don’t want it.”

Deanna squeezed her eyes shut, wondered if Cas would notice if she turned away, put her hands over her ears.

“Anna,” Cas said, voice thin and brittle. “I can’t hear them. I can’t hear any of them. Can you?”

Anna smoothed Cas’s forehead, pulling the strands of hair sticking to her sweat. She pressed a kiss against her scalp, eyes closed, forehead wrinkled with a frown.

“I can’t—I can’t hear anything,” Cas said. “All there is is this—pounding between my ears. Blood moving, pumping...This body, these eyes, it’s all too bright and it all feels so cold...my vessel, it’s too fragile, and this,” she grabbed at her arms, as if she could rip herself apart like paper, “this flesh is all dried up like wine skins about to burst, and I can hear everything, all of it, inside—that...hideous sound of cells living, and dying, and bursting, splitting in two, and-”

Deanna knocked her chair against the floor as she stood. “Give her the pain meds.” She turned her head over her shoulder. “We can always get more.”

She made sure that Anna slipped her a vicodin before she left. Outside, she took deep, gasping breaths of fresh mountain air. It stabbed at her lungs, too cold and sharp, but she wanted it to hurt. To burn. The rest of the world was burning, anyway.

It was almost easy to believe that everything else was a fucking nightmare, heady with oxygen and the smell of the pine leaves.

—

Deanna tried to watch over Cas as much as possible while she slept restlessly on their thin mattress, but maybe it was easier if you were made of stone and you didn’t need to sleep. Or when you didn’t start at every moan whispered between those half-parted lips, or when you had to keep washing the sweat from someone’s hot forehead.

There was a chance that her foot had become infected—but no. That wouldn’t happen. Deanna wouldn’t let it happen because, like she’d told them all back when—when they were all together—they were all just too damn pretty for god to let them die.

Sometimes Cas woke up, and she’d say, “Hurts. Isn’t there anymore?”

Deanna always lied. “No. Not right now.”

And Cas cursed, groping around nearby for the tin where she kept the remainder of her pot. Deanna put her hand over Cas’, pulling it gently away and kicking the tin under their bed.

“You can’t have it,” Deanna said. “You’ve had a lot already today, and we can’t risk something happening, or you having a bad reaction. We--we don’t know how you might be affected without your grace. I’m sorry.”

“Right now I’d rather die,” Cas said, fist against her forehead.

Deanna swallowed hard, the small vicodin pill she had slipped in her pocket heavy like a lead weight. “You don’t mean that.”

Cas scoffed and tried to roll over on her side, but the effort winded her, and she smushed her face against the pillow, panting in deep, labored breaths.

“Can I at least get a drink of water? Or are you’ll afraid I’ll drown in the damn cup?”

Deanna shook her head. “No, Cas. I...I’ll get you some water.”

But there was somebody already waiting for her in the kitchen.

“I swear if you were in a real meatsuit I would punch you in the fucking face,” Deanna said, narrowing her eyes at Michael. The bastard hadn’t bothered to show up for a week after Cas had gotten hurt, and Deanna had been waiting for this. “You fucking knew about the demons controlling the Croats, didn’t you?”

Michael’s impassive expression only made her desire to hit him grow that much more. “You said you didn’t want my help-”

“If you wanted to show me that you actually gave a damn, then you would have stepped up to the plate.”

“If you would just say-”

“Say yes? Is that it? Leave me with no other options but to turn to you and say ‘Please, Michael, turn me into a prom dress so you and your little brother can destroy everything’, huh?”

“I wouldn’t be so crude about it, but-”

“But nothing!” she shouted. She wanted to wrap her fingers around his throat and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until he couldn’t fucking breathe, until he felt the panic flutter like a butterfly’s wings in those last gulping breaths of air in his ribcage, the pounding of his heart on red alert. But it was useless. Angels didn’t need to breathe, after all. “Good people are dying! I lost five of them last week, and I almost lost another—your freaking sibling, who you apparently don’t care enough about to help. I shouldn’t be surprised, though—you’re willing to kill your own sister just because your Dad said so.” She heard the echo of John Winchester’s words to her, years ago, _you might have to kill Sammy, if you can’t keep her safe..._ “I doubt a god who inflicts pain on others just for the sake of his own interests.”

She would have said more, would gone on for however long she could, but she heard a shuffling sound by the door and turned to look.

“Deanna, I know you think I can’t help myself, but I need my-” Cas stopped in the doorway, leaning heavily on the door frame, the cane that Becky had scavenged somewhere dropping from her hand. She stared at Michael, the blood draining from her face.

“Cas-”

“You...” Cas trailed off. She was shaking, Deanna could see it even from where she stood. Michael turned and gave his sibling a small smile. It was wrong, so fucking wrong.

“Hello, little sister,” Michael said. “You’re looking particularly…human.”

Cas didn’t speak. Deanna didn’t even see the rise and fall of her chest; maybe she wasn’t even breathing.

Michael looked between the two of them, gaze finally resting on Deanna for a long moment. He walked toward her, leaning close enough that his lips brushed against her ear as he spoke. “If you say yes,” Michael whispered, “I’ll save her. I won’t let any of the Host near her. She’ll be safe. Ding, ding, ding, sweet little Clarence can earn her wings once more.” With that, he gave one last knowing look at Cas before he disappeared.

—

Cas visibly swayed, her foot dangerously close to giving out on her. Deanna rushed over to help her sit down, but Cas shoved her away with more strength than Deanna was expecting. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed, her voice hoarse.

“Cas, why-”

Cas lifted her hand. “Hush. I’m asking questions now.”

“Okay, Cas,” Deanna said, remembering when Cas had once slammed her up against a wall, hand so tight against her mouth that Deanna wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to speak again. “Whatever you want.”

“What was that?” she asked.“Why was he here?”

“I-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cas said, glaring over her shoulder, stopping Deanna cold in her tracks as she approached.

“I didn’t think-”

Cas turned around to face her fully. “You didn’t think I would want to know? You drop everything to say goodbye to your sister, and you don’t even-” she shook her head, fingernails gouging moons into her thighs.

Deanna snapped her head up. “Say goodbye? Is that what you think? Fuck you, it was to save her. Michael’s the one people need saving from. Him and Lucifer.”

“And you dare to say that I have no faith in you?” Cas said. “How long have you been sneaking around like this, Deanna? With him?”

“What does it matter anyway?” Deanna said, grabbing Cas’ shoulders as she sat down on the table. “I’ve got nothing left! Everything I’ve done, it’s been pointless! I should have just given in a long time ago, and now—”

Castiel smacked Deanna’s hands away, her fingers moving to settle against Deanna’s lips. “And what about what I have lost for you? What I have sacrificed, all for you? How many of your sisters have you killed, Deanna?” she said as she leaned in close. The scent of alcohol was heavy on her breath—such a human thing, even though she still smelled like the air before a thunderstorm, pure and clear. “The lost grace of my sisters, my brothers, my siblings, scorched against the earth...it could fill the night sky with stars, tenfold.” She pushed Deanna hard enough to make her stumble back a few steps. “So spare me your piteous self-loathing.”

Deanna couldn't resist, didn’t want to throw her arms out to regain her balance or settle her weight into a fighting stance. She moved with the force of Cas’ blow, twisting away yet still letting herself be pulled in by Cas; like an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force.

Cas pushed her into the counter, and Deanna hoped, viciously, as she banged against the hard wood, that her hip would bruise, that Cas would see the blue and purple abrasion sticking out like a flag. She wanted Cas to run her tongue across it, pushing at the bruise before she biting at Deanna’s hipbone, wanting for attention.

And it was seven kinds of wrong for her to want this right now, to be thinking of this at all in this moment, but Cas moved in close, looming over her dark and infinite, her injured foot all but ignored. She reached out to grab Deanna by the collars of her shirts, jerking her forward. Cas settled her knee on the table next to Deanna’s hip, her bad foot dangling from the edge, the space between their hips nonexistent. “

I gave everything for you, and for what? So you could say yes?”

Cas’ words were articulate, hot against her lips. Deanna closed her eyes trying escape how Cas stared at her unblinkingly, almost like she was an angel again.

“You have nothing to say?” she murmured, every word shooting straight through Deanna like bullets, over and over until she just wanted to curl up on the inside and hide away until Cas came chasing after, dragging her back.

Cas’s hand trailed up Deanna’s neck, too light and easy a touch. The skin around her throat, still tender and bruised purple from the demons and Lucifer, ached under Cas’ fingers.

“Sam did it, Cas!” she shouted. “You saw her in Detroit, she said yes! And I’m too busy fucking around, and now I’ve gotta watch over you because god knows you’re gonna do something fucking stupid since you can’t admit you’re just like the rest of us now, and I can’t even say yes and finally end this thing once and for all!” Her voice broke at the end, and a strangled sob broke from deep in her throat.

Cas slapped her across the cheek, the sting of the blow spreading warm and prickly across her flesh, sending her blood pounding harder through her head. Deanna sobbed and Cas gathered her in close. Their foreheads were nearly touching, their breath mingling together.

“I’m not made of glass, Deanna,” Cas said, resting her forehead against Deanna’s shoulder. “I’m not a child. I’m older than you could ever imagine--I don’t need you to make decisions for me.”

Deanna’s voice cracked when she spoke again. “I don't have anything left now, Cas. You’re it. But Michael probably wouldn't even want a broken vessel like me." She pulled away, but only enough that she could look Cas in the eye. “What the fuck else am I good for now, then, huh? I started it, and I was supposed to end it, and I can’t even do that.”

Cas leaned in close, lips brushing against the shell of Deanna’s ear. “And how do you think I feel? A burned out excuse of an angel without even the whispers of the host to remind me of who I once was?” Her eyes were bright, they were too much, impossible and with too much blunt honesty there, but Deanna didn’t look away this time. She wouldn’t.

Crowding back in, Cas shoved Deanna down onto the table, pinned her there with a possessive hand against her stomach, her palm splayed beneath Deanna's shirt against her navel. Cas’ other hand skimmed down her side, till she came to where the waistline of Deanna’s jeans rested low on her hips, dipping her fingers down to toy with the elastic underneath for a brief moment. She moved her hand away almost at once, until her palm settled on Deanna’s waist.

Pulling away, Cas shifted her weight, and pain flashed across her face briefly. Before Deanna could respond though, fingers tangled in her hair and Cas pulled Deanna into a quick, hard kiss. She dragged Deanna’s thin cotton shirt up and over her head, tossing it away to land somewhere on the floor nearby. Her head tilted as she pressed in closer, mouth parting to nip sharp kisses across her jaw, soft ones down her neck, from her collarbone downwards, darting in to lick and kiss into sensitive skin before she moved lower, lower still, between Deanna’s breasts, down her stomach, nuzzling her nose against Deanna’s navel as she unbuttoned Deanna’s jeans.

Her head was spinning, and Deanna clutched at the edges of the table with one hand, the other carding through Cas’ hair, so soft against her fingers. Selfishly, she wanted Cas to hold her up, because Cas was the only one who ever could, and Deanna wanted to hollow out a space inside of herself where Cas could hide away and Deanna could keep her safe, too. They’d been so off-balance, going back and forth, never enough and always too much.

But this would have to be enough because eventually it would be all they had left. Deanna was terrible with words but she could at least do this. Sex was easy, sex was familiar and safe, and when she felt Cas’ tongue lave along the place where Deanna’s hip and thigh met, her nimble fingers slipping under the edge of her panties.

When Cas stopped, rested her chin against Deanna's belly, Deanna groaned and glanced down to find Cas once again watching her, too intently. A smirk crossed her face and one slim digit slid inside Deanna, and she shuddered, her hand fisting in Cas' hair when a thumb began rubbing in circles around her clit, never quite where Deanna wanted it. "Damn, it, Cas--”

Cas halted her movements, seemingly waiting for something. Deanna thunked her head back against the table. Leaning up, Cas kissed Deanna between her breasts and simply waited. “More,” Deanna whispered, clenching her muscles in an attempt to spur Cas on. Still, Cas waited, cupping around her heated flesh instead, fingers teasing over Deanna's sensitive clit and through the dark curls just above it.

“Please,” Deanna whimpered, arching her hips up and trying to find the right friction, but Cas pulled her hand away. When Deanna tried to follow, Cas pushed her back down, her hand skimming past bruises and half-healed cuts, and God, it only made Deanna want her more.

“I may be human now, but I'm still an angel. What do you say to angels, Deanna?” Cas said, slipping up, her lips grazing the hollow of Deanna's throat.

Deanna shivered as Cas’ breath brushed against her skin, her heart pounding in her chest and between her legs as Cas’ other hand wrapped around her shoulder, and _fuck,_ her heart jerked as Cas’ fingers skimmed against the raised flesh of the handprint she herself had seared into Deanna’s skin.

“Oh,” she breathed, wondering how her throat could even make sounds right now. She knew what Cas wanted, needed to hear, but all the neurons in her brain seemed to be on standby. “Cas—”

Cas' hand skated back down, fingertips tracing the swell of her breasts, running the pad of her thumb over Deanna's nipple and rolling it around until Deanna twisted beneath her.

“Fine, yes,” Deanna gasped. "Yes, please, yes!"

"There, was that so hard?" Cas chuckled at Deanna's half-hearted glare, but she acquiesced, leaning down to catch the nipple in her mouth, sucking gently. Cas' fingers slid back into her at the same time, sending sparks skittering through her, jolting down to her toes and rushing to her head, white lightning behind her eyelids. Her thighs fell open, granting Cas better access, and Cas took advantage of it, grinding the heel of her hand against Deanna's clit with every twist of her fingers inside.

Deanna pushed back against her as the hard wire of pleasure tightened in her abdomen, threatening to snap. Heat flooded her belly, making her legs tremble. “Cas-”

“Wait, Deanna, you have to wait until I say you can,” Cas ordered breathlessly against her neck, licking a wet stripe up her throat.

Teeth sank into the soft flesh where Deanna's neck curved into her shoulder, distracting her; she carded a hand through Cas’s hair, pulling and clenching to brace herself against the flood of warmth rushing through her, from the way she broke against Cas.

“Now,” Cas demanded, "because I do this to you, I do this for you, I—”

But Deanna couldn't hear the rest as she shuddered her release, her raw throat was raw, her moans fragile and thin in the warm air. Cold started rushing in but Deanna found she couldn’t care less.

Cas didn’t stop, didn’t pull her hand away. Instead, she slipped her thumb inside as well and crooked her fingers upwards, applying pressure to just the right spot inside. Deanna’s vision went white as the pleasure cascaded through her, taking her over and pulling her beyond herself. Broken syllables, broken sounds escaped from her slack-jawed mouth as Deanna jerked helplessly against Cas, her nerves too fired up for her to do much more than gasp for breath against Cas’ questing mouth, her lips slack and wet.

Deanna was so sensitive that she couldn’t decide if she wanted to wrench away or push down even harder—she didn’t have to worry about anything, though, because Cas held her down just the way she liked, arm across the wide bridge of her hips, relentless as she fucked into Deanna’s swollen cunt.

“What’s happening to you?” Cas whispered, breathless. “What’s happening to you, Deanna? Who is it that’s done this to you?”

Deanna barely moaned out “you” before Cas broke her rhythm, grazing a knuckle against a spot deep inside that sent stars bursting across her vision, and Cas’ too, no doubt, as she kissed Deanna through the aftershocks, murmuring incomprehensible words against the sweat on her skin.

Too stunned to barely breathe, her every nerve on fire, Deanna remained immobile on the table, arms flung out, trembling as her senses slowly returned to normal and she came back down to earth.

Cas crawled up over Deanna, a slide of thigh against thigh until her knee nestled in the vee of her splayed legs, nudging right up against her oversensitized flesh. Deanna shuddered with an aftershock of her orgasm and Cas just chuckled.

Not much later they had somehow managed to hobble over to their bed, arms looped around each other. Deanna, bracketed in by Cas' arms, had no place to go but snuggle in, tucking her head under Cas’ chin. She blamed her fucked-out bliss when she murmured, “Do you ever miss heaven, Cas?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Cas whispered, but the words didn’t matter because they were here, together.

Deanna tried to shift, but Cas was still slumped over her, and now she was favoring her broken foot again. Deanna eyed Cas, her fingers tugging on the belt loops of Cas’ pants in an unspoken question, but Cas gripped her wrist and warily said, “Not now.”

Deanna cradled her palm against Cas’s cheek, marveling at how her own muscles continued to shiver and tremble beneath her skin, as though Cas had literally shaken her to her soul. But that wasn't possible anymore. “Are you sure?”

Cas hummed in affirmative.

—

Sometimes Deanna thought about what her tombstone would have said—assuming she somehow got one, anyway. Not that she begrudged Sam for the simple wooden cross that had marked her grave the last time she died; she just liked to think about what might've been said about her had dead things stayed dead as they damn well should have.

She was pretty sure it'd be something like: _Deanna Mary Winchester, 1979-?. **Sister**_ would have been in big capital letters, since it was the word that had defined her life since she was four years old. And then maybe some kind of quote. What it would be she didn't know, but she wanted it to fucking mean something. It wouldn't be like that cheesy Bible-verse, believe-in-God crap some people ended up with, either.

Vonnegut, she finally decided. She'd want something by Vonnegut on her tombstone. The worst things about life, after all...horrible mistakes were kind of a tradition with her.

The downside to the Apocalypse was that she no longer had time to read books. Sam wouldn't have understood—Sam _never_ fucking understood; how could she, when all she'd cared about was how fucked up they all were and how perfect everything not their family was? Sam had never noticed the well-worn copy of _Deadeye Dick_ that Deanna slept with under her pillow (right next to her knife). Never found the small collection of battered books, some of them still with the library stickers on the spines, hidden in Deanna's small corner of the Impala's trunk not filled to the brim with weaponry. None of it.

“I don’t know, okay? I just don’t know.” Deanna’s voice was small and frail in her own ears. “And I’m fucking tired. I hate that I’m not doing a damn thing—I’m just drifting. I hate that I can’t do a goddamn thing for anyone—” _especially Cas_ —“and that I’m afraid of getting everyone killed.”

She took in a deep, shuddering breath, before downing the rest of her drink, slamming the glass back onto the surface of the bar. The liquid burned in her throat, same as it would have if this were reality, and not just a dream. After a few moments, she said, “You know, what I hate most of all is that I’m telling you any of this. Because why you? Why the fuck should I tell you? There’s only one thing you want to hear.” Deanna focused her gaze on a spot across from her on the other side of the bar. “So you know what? Fine. Fine, Michael. You win.” She spat out the words. “The answer’s yes.”

There was a long moment while she waited—waited to feel her consciousness burned away like the drink in her throat, and it didn’t matter if it was a dream. The silence in her head was buzzing louder and louder; still nothing came, and Deanna let out a long breath.

Sad as it was, Sam probably wouldn't have thought to have anything so sentimental like that, though. And for a terrible, horrifying moment, Deanna had no idea what Sam would even write about her.

—

Fuck, she didn’t remember getting drunk, so goddamn drunk. She didn’t even remember going outside, much less falling to her knees in the grass and the muck, the rain from yesterday having left the ground soft and muddy. When Cas found her she had fistfuls of grass in her hand and her throat was sore, her voice wrecked, and she clung pathetically to Cas’ side. All that came out of her mouth were ugly, shuddering sobs and saliva mixed with blood.

Cas tried to lift her onto her feet, but Deanna was too heavy. When Cas hissed, “Help me,” Deanna hiccoughed then forced her tired, scattered, drunken brain to focus, and she hauled herself up. She allowed herself to be lead back into their tiny little hut where Cas prodded Deanna through the beaded curtain door with her cane.

Cas guided her into the bathroom and sat her down on the closed lid of the toilet. She took a scrap of torn shirt—plaid—and Deanna wondered, briefly, if it was maybe one of Sam’s old shirt. No, it couldn’t have been; Sam had never been here—how could one of them have ever had a home that the other hadn’t also shared? Cas turned on the tap, and Deanna drowned out the sob hitching in her throat with the sound of the splashing water.

Deanna shivered when Cas pressed the cold compress to her swollen eyes, goosebumps crawling up her arm. “How are we ever supposed to get used to this?”

Cas dipped the cloth under the running water once more, washing away mud and bits of grass from it that went swirling down the makeshift drain. “Why are you’re asking me?”

Cas stepped closer again, and Deanna mumbled against her stomach, “You knew 'the plan' at some point, right? And now you're human.”

The air that filled the space when Cas jerked away was frigid and cold; and Deanna, her vision swimming and her head lolling forward, couldn’t tell if Cas was standing farther from her on purpose. Maybe her brain was just hazy from the booze. She only vaguely felt Cas’ fingers carding gently through her hair.

—

When she woke up later, Deanna found herself alone in their bed. Her head was heavy and dizzy from the mother of all hangovers, and she could barely hold herself upright before dropping back down to the pillow. She blinked, looked for Cas, thought she saw a glimpse of dark hair and an old blue shirt of hers peeking through the beaded curtain of the doorframe.

She yawned then stretched, grimacing through the charlie horse that knotted up her calves, waiting them out until they diminished to a faint throb. The floor was cold against her bare feet even though it was barely even fall.

Cas was on the porch, her good foot stretched out, nails gleaming with newly applied purple glitter nail polish. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she tried to apply it to the toes of her broken foot, but the cast kept getting in the way.

Deanna sat down beside her. “Let me,” she said, taking the nail polish from her hands, dipping the brush in.

Cas narrowed her eyes, but she leaned back and set her foot in Deanna’s lap. With the paint, her nails no longer looked broken and dirty. She lit up a joint, and Deanna tried not to mind the smell of the smoke as she applied a final coat.

“Do you want me to do your hands too?” she asked softly.

Cas paused, and for a moment her gaze hardened. Then her lashes drifted down and her expression shuttered back to soft and mellow as she took another drag off the joint. Cas held out her hand.

Dean cradled Cas' fingers against her palm, kissing each knuckle once before asking, “What do you want for them? That purple glitter shit or something else?”

When Castiel made her paint each a nail a different color, Deanna didn’t mind. Not one bit.

**Author's Note:**

> I could not have done this without the help of a lot of people. Firstly, to my fantastic artist, psycocatgirl, who did such a wonderful job. Thank you soooooooooo much bb :3 Also, to my betas, Bexy, Sonja, and Alyssa, thank you guys a ton for all of your help. This fic would far worse without your help. And of course, to everyone on tumblr who supported me and kept telling me that I could do this. And hey look--I did! ^^ It means a lot to me, you guys, so thank you so, so much <3
> 
> Title is from "Wishbone" by Richard Siken. References: a few Star Trek and Star Wars-related quotes are sprinkled here and there, as well as a quote referencing ["A Softer World"](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm529yTNhF1qic0bro1_500.jpg)


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